Effective leaders in our industry have been and are able to manage the unexpected with smooth acumen. Fun as it is for us to contemplate managing the unexpected, it presents a deep challenge.

High-reliability organizations (HROs) are high-risk, zero-defect organizations. HROs officially include naval aircraft carriers, nuclear power plants, wilderness firefighting teams and emergency room medical units. HROs could include climbing teams, and Delta Force fighting units. And it's my belief we can add a heck of a lot of manufacturing plants, and for sure, restaurants.

In Managing the Unexpected, the bible on HROs, authors Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe share myriad metaphors that apply to our world of work. Ours is an industry unlike most. While not exactly life threatening, turnaround time on cash flow, R&D, production and service delivery is rapid. From my perspective, we are zero defect.

Failure occurs “when somebody counted on something to happen and it didn't, or someone counted on something not to happen and it did.” How are HROs different? Awareness and mindfulness is constant at HROs. There is a demand to stay in balance, which is core to survival in HROs. As leaders in the foodservice and hospitality industry, there is a definite opportunity in learning more about HROs.

Benchmarking Cross-Industry
Effective leaders in our industry have been and are able to manage the unexpected with smooth acumen. Fun as it is for us to contemplate managing the unexpected, it presents a deep challenge. Although you and I conceptualize, most managers don't talk in the abstractions that visionary leaders do. Although the concept of managing the unexpected is great, beware. In support of our managers, concrete specifics of “what” and “how” need to show up pretty darn quick. “Oh, we can benchmark,” you say to yourself. “The best guys out there are benchmarking.”

As the authors point out, “managers love to benchmark, but they love to benchmark the familiar. Get them too far away from their comfort zone with a stretch organization or a stretch metaphor [from a visionary leader] and they are quick to retreat behind the judgment, 'That's irrelevant!'”

So how can we manage the concrete, and, at the same time, own the stretch and the truism that, “Bold initiatives come from bold generalizing”?

Weick and Sutcliffe go on to say, “Successful surgical teams, fire fighters, fighter pilots, deck crews of aircraft carriers, do not benchmark against their peers, they benchmark against experts in a process, not experts in a look-a-like firm.”

So benchmarking may not be against another restaurant or manufacturer in the same field, but from a completely different industry—yet one dealing with far better execution in service or manufacturing than anyone we know. Thus, the authors advise you to look to what they call “experts in reliability.”

What I love—in the application of HROs to the world of foodservice and hospitality—is that reliability doesn't mean lack of variety. There is paradox everywhere, just like real life. There is actually a huge need for the ability to be flexible, to support variety in the name of assuring stable high performance.

I appreciate this research on HROs. The authors talk of the need to be mindful, of being balanced as an ongoing commitment in leadership. Let's walk through five characteristics of HROs that Weick and Sutcliffe deem core to mindfulness, to what I call “awareness and attention.” These are:
· Preoccupation with failure
· Reluctance to simplify interpretations
· Sensitivity to operations
· Commitment to resilience
· Deference to expertise

Preoccupation with Failure
I tend to not say much about failure except that it's not acceptable. The paradox is that there is much to learn from failure and acknowledging failure.

“HROs are noteworthy because they avoid disasters, they do not gloat over this fact; just the opposite,” Weick and Sutcliffe say. “They are preoccupied with their failures, large and mostly small. They treat any lapse as a symptom that something is wrong in the system.”

Altough many if not most of the major companies in the United States only want to hear the “good news,” reporting errors is a very positive thing. Even more, sharing the truth of a near miss creates an opportunity to learn. By sharing stories, a “fire” can be put out once and for all.

This is core to learning organizations. Strive for zero defects, and applaud the learning from any mistake. Tied to this preoccupation with failure in HROs is an equal concern that strengths can turn into blind weaknesses. There is in fact a slippery slope with success that can include complacency.

Reluctance to Simplify
The most effective companies I know have very definitive training. There is an exact expectation of performance rather than some simple guidelines that are vague at best. Rather than simplify or water down training, HROs commit to simplifying nothing. In fact, “let's learn more” seems to be their motto. HROs define excellence in by investigating the details. Again a paradox, the detail allows seeing more broadly, more deeply, experiencing much more.

Sensitivity to Operations
Beware subtle behaviors that are not a below-the-water-line worry. These slips can be a clear signal for you that a proverbial crack has formed in the dyke. These red flag behaviors may be as subtle as failing to greet the guest within 20 seconds of their arrival. These bits of evidence—just slips, you say—can be gifts if we choose to see them. Each is a data point—when we are mindful and aware that support us to immediately course-correct. If we don't, for no apparent reason, two months later, sales drop exponentially, and the leaders can't figure out why.

Commitment to Resilience
When mistakes happen, HROs course-correct immediately and learn how to not make the same mistake twice. How often do you or I simulate the equivalent of a fire drill? Imagine the learning from this type of testing. For example, most well-run restaurants have a “crash kit.” This kit includes all the materials/tools the staff would need to get through a shift without the point-of-sale system in the event of a power outage. But, how many of us with crash kits actually practice this happening any time other than our initial opening training? When a crash does happen—and they do—our guests and our staff suffer even though we are supposedly prepared.

Deference to Expertise
Are operations in your company led from seniority, or from expertise? Unions aside, expertise is not always based on years of experience. Doing a task unconsciously is not the safest or most effective way to excel. Where and how are you defining expertise in your team? Looking back at the top of this column, the parameters that define fire fighters, surgical teams and aircraft carriers all fit our world of work. I believe to be successful, we must be HROs.

Rudy M. Miick, FCSI, president of Miick & Associates, can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text35104 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 720-641-7565.